Handwriting analysis, as a means of personality analysis, is a technique that has been actively applied from the past century till date. Handwriting is brain-writing. The brain is the director of our physical as well as our mental activity in everyday life. Just as our writing reflects our personality, so does it reflect certain aberrations in our physiology.

Handwriting and physical health are very closely related. When one is ill or injured, it affects the smoothness and coordination of his/ her script, and very often an impending illness will show up in the handwriting. When there are tremulous strokes and even a little gap in one of the letters - all in the same area, the left side of the top of the upper-zone letter, we can easily find why the writer complains of headaches. Handwriting is able to recognise specific deficiencies, such as physical weakness, poor memory, anxiety, stress, depression, lack of confidence and various types of health problem.

X-ray of Human Mind and Body

Handwriting analysis is a very useful tool for spotting health problems before they become too severe and aggravated, and, is also an excellent way of identifying the level of stress an individual may be experiencing. Handwriting analysis can serve as an X- ray of an individual's physical state. Just as handwriting provides the graphologist with an insight into someone's personality and behaviour, it also provides indicators which give a graphic record of the writer's neurophysiologic functioning.

Growing evidence suggests that graphology can help therapists identify disorder and health related problems and also offers an accurate assessment of a person's response to treatment. The earlier an illness is spotted, the easier it is to deal with it. Handwriting analysis may be the reason someone goes to a doctor for a check up before a disease has a chance to take hold of the body. If the disorder is cured, it is interesting to note how the signs disappear from the writing of the writer as well.

Almost 16 years ago, I began working with physicians focusing on Indian handwritings and dealing with patients. I was looking at the association between handwriting characteristics and health which has already been proved by early graphologists in America and Europe. This association is also something I had already studied as part of my graphology research. I wanted to analyse in the Indian context to confirm, how far handwriting changes can be used to predict the development of medical conditions in India. And I wanted to investigate whether one's handwriting might be used to diagnose medical conditions which exist but have not otherwise been identified. The findings so far have been amazing. And now I am confident about the accurate diagnosis by studying nearly 85, 000 patients’ handwritings throughout India so far.

The Power of the Hand

Almost all diseases that medical science is diagnosing now can be diagnosed from a patient’s handwriting successfully, and can be treated through grapho-therapy too. Let’s learn analysing handwriting by picking up some quick clues and diagnosing some of the diseases. Please do not try to diagnose yourself or others using this technique. It takes a professional to recognise the nuances of change in a handwriting sample.

Illnesses are diagnosed from the handwriting of a person considering the following aspects:

typical upper zone letters : f, t, l, h, b, i-dots, t-bars

typical middle zone letters : a, m, n, o, w

typical lower zone letters : f, g, p, y, g

pressure exerted while writing

slants

connections

spacing

Symptoms of physical malfunctioning manifests itself in various forms, such as tremors, intervals, a dot in the middle of the line, smudging letters, stressed letters, a break in the line, a pause in the middle of the line, pressure of writing, rigid spacing, placing ‘i’ dots and ‘t’ bar differently, etc.

Hands Say It AllIt is widely accepted in medical science that with the development of cancer, certain neuromuscular disturbances of coordination develop. Since handwriting constitutes the tracing of neuromuscular coordination, the microscopic characteristics of handwriting strokes become a significant method for examining human neuromuscular development. The symptom of cancer in handwriting shows a breakdown of every phase of the writing process. The strokes are generally stiff or formless. The pressure is uneven, sometimes too heavy, and too light in other strokes. There are clear interruptions between descending and ascending strokes, and both types of strokes show marked, low-amplitude, high-frequency segmentations. Even specific cancer can be diagnosed by carefully analysing the different zones of handwriting.

In the act of writing, a person with heart trouble, who also suffers from shortness of breath, instinctively rests the pen on the paper. It is confirmed that a disrupted pattern of strokes can be indicative of cardiac disease. The inability to coordinate voluntary muscular movements, which are marked by partial dotting of the course of strokes, has been discovered at very early and clinically undetected stages. Certain breaks particularly in the lower-case ‘h’ and ‘b’ in a person’s writing, slight interruptions in the upstroke and in the down stroke, especially in letters with loops, can point to heart disease too. When most of the defects appear in the upper left portion of the upper zone, this may be due to a stroke, which affected the left side of one’s body.

Pregnancy can be determined in a woman’s handwriting at a very early stage. It is expressed as a small spot in the pregnant woman’s writing long before any external symptoms are visible. ‘Pregnancy spot’, a terminology used in graphology, is found from a pregnant lady’s writing. This spot always appears very clearly in the middle zone of the writing, especially with letters ‘a’ and ‘o’.

Even the gender of an unborn baby a mother is expecting can be successfully scanned through her handwriting when she is six months pregnant. In case of male baby the letters ‘f’ and ‘l’ and ‘p’ loops bulge to the right and letters ‘g’ and ‘y’ loops point to the right. In case of a female baby it’s the other way around. Zonal changes are also to be considered along with these distinct clues.

Gaps which are found in the centre of the middle zone indicate problems in the area of the stomach and crotch. This type of writing is frequently found among women after sustaining a hysterectomy.

Missing or invisible ‘i’ dots confirms a symptom of anaemia or low blood pressure. Disturbance or zigzagged upper right part of the upper zone (reflecting the head), a thickening and a gap in writing discovers loss of hearing in the right ear. Heavy pressure in the left lower part of the lower zones, especially in g, j, along with left breakage and ink filled or smudged loop is a symptom that the writer suffers from corns on the left foot. Imagine markedly less pressure (almost blank spaces) in the left side of the lower zone. This writer may have been in a fire and still has the scar. Considering both the left side and the right side of the lower zone, which show empty spaces, confirms feet deformity.

A writing disturbance that occurs in the lower part of the upper-zone areas, like without ‘t’ bar, or when letters ‘l’ and ‘d’ are well looped but breaking and sharp, can indicate that the writer suffered a slipped disk. If a person who usually writes in a relatively clear manner suddenly begins to write a blotchy, unclear hand, it is a danger signal of possible physical and/or mental illness .This paranoiac betrayed himself through blurred spots his script. These blurred spots may be interpreted as the visible traces of the writer's temporary confusion or his unconscious attempt to obliterate his traces. For such blurred words, letters, syllables, figures seem to be produced during a passing loss of consciousness on the part of the writer.

One of the characteristics of compulsive neurotics is that they feel an unreasonable need to repeat certain thoughts or acts, often of an apparently harmless and meaningless nature. In handwriting, too, compulsive neurosis asserts itself in such meaningless repetitions. When asked why he repeated the ‘i’ dots, and ‘t’ bar the writer answered that he did not know why, but could not help repeating them.